AMG BLAGHS

Holy cow - it's been a while and Hello, Sekrit Santa!

2008-12-12T10:39:00.001-06:00

So long in fact, I can barely remember how to do this!

I have lots of knitting projects to update, but mostly I'm doing that via my project page on Ravelry these days. And, um...yeah. That's a bit behind too...

The main reason for this post is to post info for my Sekrit Swap pal. :)

1. State your name and favorite holiday song.
Kimberlyn/AMG
Winter Wonderland

2. What is your favorite color?
Green.
Except when it's blue.
Or purple.
Sometimes it's brown.
And I really find myself liking grey right now (wtf is up with that? i bet a therapist would love that progression...)

3. Do you have any special holiday traditions?

Every year, we get a new 'special ornament.' This year, DS decided that the little foam ornament he received from his dance instructor qualified. Gotta love kids!

4. What is your favorite holiday memory?
The year my dad got a new pair of water skis & we went water skiing Christmas day.

5. Any allergies we should know about?
Nope.

6. What crafts do you do - knit, crochet, spin, dye, bead, quilt, etc.?
Knit, sorta spin, sorta crochet. The beads have been put on hiatus due to their lack of ease of portability, lol.

7. Any sorts of fibers you particularly love or hate or are dying to work with?

The experts say you are supposed to have a diet rich in fiber, right? And that your diet should be varied. So, there ya go. I like 'em all.

8. What weight of yarn do you prefer?

Now see, that's a sticky one. I used to swear I would never knit lace. And now I have more laceweight that I ever imagined myself owning (it's not a lot, mind you, compared to some, but the fact that I actually own it and, moreover, have intentionally purchased it for myself, could quite possibly be one of the signs of the apocalypse...).

Going by my stash, you'd think I preferred worsted. But lately I have been leaning more in the direction of DK or sport weight. It's that whole "balance of the universe" thing. Probably.

9. What are your favorite knitting accessories? (i.e.: stitch markers, row counters…)
I love my stitch markers. Mostly I love that if I need more, I can make more ;-) I would love my scissors, needle gauge and tape measure too, if I could ever find them when I needed them...

10. Do you subscribe to any crafty magazines?
IK.

11. What do you collect aside from fiber-related things?
I'm guessing dust bunnies don't count? Cellulite? Wrinkles? Spam? Yeah, I didn't think so. Then nothing, really.

12. Favorite candy, chocolate (dark, white, or milk), tea, coffee, other treats?
Dark chocolate, hands down.

13. Do you enjoy handmade soap and body products?
Erm, I'm not a "body products" kinda gal...

14. What is your favorite winter sport/past time?
Snuggling under the covers with a good book.

15. What is your favorite holiday movie?
A Charlie Brown Christmas

16. What is your favorite: flavor, flower, letter, number, film, artist, scent?
Flavor: Chocolate. With raspberries for good measure.
Flower: Texas wildflowers
Letter: "Dear AMG: Congratulations on winning..."
Oh. Not what you meant? OK. Um...Q. I think that's the funnest letter in the alphabet.
Film: To Have or Have Not
Artist: Klee
Scent: Fresh coffee (preferably wafting from the mug being handed to me as I wake well after the sun has risen. Shaddup, a girl can dream, can't she?)

17. Anything we should *not* get for you?
See #13 above. Add "candles."

18. Do you have a blog and or wishlist that are not linked on Ravelry or listed in the GoogleDoc?

Dude, you are reading my blog. And I haven't updated my amazon wishlist in like, forevah.

19. Anything special you would like your partner to know?

I'm just tickled to be associated with the awesome Rav helpers - you are all faboo!

o hai

2008-07-10T11:09:00.002-05:00

Long time no post. Like, a LONG time. I'm really not that lazy.
*insert pause for insane laughter*

So, let's revisit a few of those resolutions I made way back about 6 months ago....

1. Finish the sock I started. Then decide if I really, really, really care enough to do it again.
Well, it didn't *exactly* happen. Something went bazonkers after the heel turn and damnifino what it was. I wasn't all that in love with the stupid pattern anyway. OK, let's say I was infatuated with it to begin with, then reality stepped in. And then the poor sock got shoved aside for other things, I couldn't find my notes and a needle came out and well, that was pretty much it for the sock.

And then I decided I wasn't EVER going to knit socks, they hate me and I have to stop buying pretty sock yarn. And THEN I gave away all but about 2 pair's worth of sock yarn. (you know where this is going, right?)OK, I have a really really good excuse. REALLY.

My excuse is that I read the Yarn Harlot's blog way too damn much. And that Lorna's Laces sock yarn kept whispering to me every time it got a chance, just daring me to cast on. And then I had a 2 week stretch of a split shift, working 4-8pm every day from home with nothing better to do that sit on the couch and knit while watching Law & Order re-runs, waiting for the phone to ring. There ya go. A pair of socks. By me. I know! Hey! Is that Four Horsemen riding up?

Oh and ps- I really, really hate the way blogger deals with inserting photos. What a pita.

2. Pick a pattern for a shawl/wrap to go with the 4 balls of Misti laceweight alpaca my mom gave me.
Nada. But I have a more interesting Ravelry queue.
3. Start knitting #2
See above.
4. Begin and finish the Tiger Eye scarf
See #2 again. I actually bought some loverly golden laceweight for this and cast on. Then realized the pattern called for fingering or sport weight. I swapped the laceweight for something else and bought a different yarn - isn't that purdy?

5. Find a pattern/idea for my 1075 yards of Malabrigo worsted in Vaa
Shaddup. I'm still looking.

6. Begin knitting #5
*lalalalalalalalala* I can't heaaaaarrrr you!
7. Get rid of all the yarn in my stash I have no intention of using for anything
HA! THIS IS DONE!!!!
The fact that it only got done this past weekend matters not at all.

8. Go with my gut and frog the damn pinwheel sweater already. Because I'm not liking how it fits, and the one sleeve that is about 3/4 done is too tight.
Done. And I have used some of the yarn (a mere pittance of it, granted) on some hats.

2008 Knitting Resolutions

2007-12-14T11:17:00.000-06:00

So, Texaspurlgirl has challenged us for our 2008 Knitting Resolutions.

Hmmmm.

1. Knit
2. Knit some more
3. Try not to overdo spending on pretty yarn I know I have no use for.
4. Try really hard not to laugh at #3

OK, for reals:

1. Finish the sock I started. Then decide if I really, really, really care enough to do it again.
2. Pick a pattern for a shawl/wrap to go with the 4 balls of Misti laceweight alpaca my mom gave me.
3. Start knitting #2
4. Begin and finish the Tiger Eye scarf
5. Find a pattern/idea for my 1075 yards of Malabrigo worsted in Vaa
6. Begin knitting #5
7. Get rid of all the yarn in my stash I have no intention of using for anything
8. Go with my gut and frog the damn pinwheel sweater already. Because I'm not liking how it fits, and the one sleeve that is about 3/4 done is too tight.

I dunno about you, but I do believe #7 is going to be the hardest...

I have no intention whatsoever of doing them in numerical order.

Felted Mitered Square Potholder

2007-11-29T16:56:00.000-06:00

Or "How I Spent My Thanksgiving Weekend"

I had a blast - taught my sister-in-law how to knit & happily spent most of Friday & all day Saturday knitting.

It took a few tries to get the proportions right, but I finally hit on a nice little recipe for a felted mitered square potholder.

Yarn: Any feltable worsted weight yarn. We used Cascade 220 in several colors

Needles: US 10.5/6.5 mm

Gauge: Not all that important, but we got something close to 8 sts/inch

Other stuff: Stitch Marker, Darning Needle

Cast on 32, place marker, cast on 32 more - 64 sts total.

Row 1: Knit to 2 sts before marker, SSK, slip marker, K2TOG, Knit to end
Row 2: Knit all sts

Reapeat rows 1 & 2 until you have 4 sts left on needle, then:
SSK, remove marker, K2TOG (you should have 2 sts remaining now), turn
K2TOG

Remove needle, pull yarn thru remaining stitch & you're done! Well, except for the weaving in of ends & the felting....

Here are some of the stripe patterns I used:

pattern 1:

Color A - 6 rows
Color B - 4 rows
Color C - 2 rows
repeat from aboce

pattern 2:

Color A - 7 rows
Color B - 5 rows
Color C - 3 rows
Repeat from above (note: you are changing colors on odd-numbered rows & will get the color change line. Which is fine. I like it. Some don't. You *have* been warned, don't bitch at me, m'kay?)

pattern 3:

Color A: 8 rows
Color B: 4 rows
Color C: 6 rows
Color A: 4 rows
Color B: 6 rows
Color C: 8 rows
Repeat and/or vary how you will till you run out of rows (And no, I have no idea how many rows there are. I are layzee like that.)

pattern 4 (second pic below)

Color A - 4 rows
Color B - 6 rows
Color C - 2 rows
Color A - 8 rows
Color B - 4 rows
Color C - 6 rows
Color A - 2 rows
Color B - 4 rows
Color C - 2 rows
Color A - 4 rows
Color B - 6 Rows
Color C - 4 rows
Color A - 2 rows
Color B - 2 rows
Color C - 2 rows (? I am just guessing based on the pic. I didn't write this one down....)

I made several potholders, varying the way I striped it - but you don't have to stripe it at all, it works just fine in one color.

Keep in mind that when you are making stripes, if you only change color on RS (or WS) rows, you will have all your ends to weave in on one side. Which will make your fabric just a titch thicker on that side. Alternating the sides you change colors on will spread out ends on both sides, but you get the "color change stripe" as seen here:

Here's a pre-felted potholder with all the color changes made on a RS row:

And, finally, here is a rather wobbly one (the first attempt, actually) where all the color changes were done on a RS row - this is a picture of it after felting and some rather pathetic attempts at "blocking". Which reminds me of another caveat: Try to make your stripes at least 4 rows wide. This one had alternating stripes of 4 rows and 2 rows. Those 2 row stripes are a bitch to weave in later. And there are a LOT of them....And I blame them for the wobbliness.

It kinda looks more like a Christmas tree in that picture, doesn't it... I wish I could get better pictures, but they are all at SIL's house.

except the one I had on my needles when I left that I will finish as soon as I finish all these damn Xmas gift clogs I am making...

Oh, yeah. More mind losing

2007-11-29T15:53:00.000-06:00

I know, I know - two posts in one day. The Apocalypse must be right around the corner.

But I would be remiss on the subject of mind losing if I failed to note my purchase of this book:
Creating Original Hand Knitted Lace by Margaret Stove. (scroll down on that page to see it).

WTF?

Srsly.

It is all David Reidy's fault, he of the Sticks & String podcast. He did a podcast & had an interview with Margaret Stove and I, foolish I, listened to it, fell in love with the thought of designing my own lace and well, next thing you know, I own a copy of the book.

Will wonders never cease.

PS - many hugs and lots of chocolate to bunnysquirrel for fixing my blog so it wasn't so skinny anymore. You rock.

Just keep spinning...

2007-11-29T15:05:00.000-06:00

What? AMG? Have you lost your freaking mind?

Yes, yes, I do believe I have!

Because not only did I learn how to spin at the Kid n Ewe for my birthday (Nov, 9 - make a note!), I just got my very own custom painted spindle from Spinsanity!

Feast your eyes:

Here, look some more:

I am in total lurve with my new spindle.

And, luckily enough, I have a buttload of roving to use on it!

As I mentioned, I was at Kid n Ewe for my birthday (thank you, dear sweet husband, for indulging a whim....) and after falling HARD for some Brooks Farm Acero for an as-yet unplanned shawl (I got 2...)

I signed up for a 2 hour Beginning Spindling class. And, marvel of marvels, 2 hours later, I totally understood the concept. I wasn't able to execute it all that well, but I sure as hell knew how it was supposed to work and I even had very brief moments when it did work. Of course, at one point, I was over heard to yell (yeah, overheard by a LOT of people) to my spindle and it's newly detatched roving that "YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!"

At which point they - spindle and roving - simply laughed maniacally and said "PROVE IT!"

Which I eventually did:

Now, these are just singles. I have yet to ply a damn thing. It took a while for me to get the courage up to even take it off the spindle & put it on the swift and even longer after that to wind it off the swift.

Aren't the colors pretty? I bought the first braid at Kid n Ewe from Lone Start Arts and then, when I realized how much I truly loved it, I bought another braid from her store in the same colorway.

I am soooooooo sunk.

Sekrit Santa Stuff

2007-11-16T16:49:00.000-06:00

Holy crap, I haven't updated this thing for a while.

And now I am doing it in a totally selfserving way - because I'm in a Sekrit Santa Swap and it is not fair, really - I'm not doing this for me! - to not post my favorite colors and all the cack that I am greedy for this year....

So, without further ado:

Color - good. Love jewel tones. And for some reason, I have been enamoured of misty greys lately.
Fiber - good. I just learned how to spin, so some pretty BFL roving would be welcome. Because, you know, the llama ball and the other roving currently on its way to me will *not* last a lifetime.
Fiber - good. Mmmmmmmmmmmalabriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigo is always a good choice. Or really, damn near any yarn. Except...see the next one...
Fiber - bad: Sock yarn. Me and socks are not getting along so well. And the sock yarn in my stash is getting restless. Let's not add more & increase the pressure....
Books - good.
Chocolate - good. Dark chocolate - best. Chocolate w/coconut, not so much...
Xmas cack - good. I am a sucker for Xmas...stuff. Shaddup.

There, I hope that helps you, Sweet Sekrit Santa!

The Mystery Project & Pattern Rant

2007-07-05T16:27:00.000-05:00

No, really.

OK, so I spent all day July 4 sitting on the couch, watching Law & Order re-runs and making...the mystery thingy(ies?) that I can't talk about. Literally ALL.DAY. I've got a bit of a cold & planted myself there, took over the remote and glared at the menfolk till they left for the movies. Have I mentioned how much I love DVR & pausing television? I never ran out of episodes. All. Day. Long. Even managed to see a few I've never seen before - yay!

I ended up using nearly 4 balls of Knit Picks Merino Style from my stash. Which I wasn't sure I'd ever find a project for. Yay. Granted, nearly half of it was in swatching & experimentation, STILL! I managed to spend an entire day knitting and have something cool in the end. Except I can't talk about it because I was making {thatwhichcannotbenamed} for my swap partner. Once {thatwhichcannotbenamed} is in her hands, I will post pix and a pattern.

What happened to the other projects, you ask?

Sigh.

Still not motivated to knit on the F&F scarf. I really do need to ramp that up. The Ballet Camisole is coming along ...OK, I suppose. I found that I goofed the pattern - knit an extra row in between increase rows (and the decrease rows as well). I would very much like to blame that on the pattern. But, I suppose I can only blame me.

Except...

/rant
Look, I'm not stupid and I can read. So, yes, I should have understood

Increase as set on every foll 6th round 6 times more

to mean "Knit the increase round, then knit straight for 5 rounds, then repeat 6 times". But why in hell can't the damned pattern say so??? Seriously, is it that fucking hard? But I just saw the number 6 twice, so when I jotted into my notebook that I carry with my knitting, this is what I wrote:

* k2, m1, k to 2 sts before marker, m1, k4, m1, k to last 2 sts, m1, k2
k 6 rounds
* repeat 1
k 6 rounds
* repeat 2
k 6 rounds
* repeat 3
k 6 rounds
* repeat 4
k 6 rounds
* repeat 5
k 6 rounds
* repeat 6

So, I have an extra fucking row going, don't I? Which - thankfully - doesn't seem to be a problem, because I am kinda long waisted BUT it has totally fucked with my head and it freaking pisses me off. Because now I don't know Why bother writing a pattern if you aren't going to write it clearly. As in, "clearly enough so that even newbie idiots like me can't goof it up."

/end rant

Slogging along & Dallas SNB & an FO

2007-06-26T11:20:00.000-05:00

I haven't been updating much as, well, there ain't much to tell. I've got 3 "big" projects going and there's not much more to say about them till they are done.

What I'm really happy about is that I found a SNB that I don't have to trek to N. Dallas to get to - yay! Stitch n Bitch Dallas meets on the 2nd & 4th Sunday and I went this past weekend and really enjoyed it - the ladies were nice, lots of interesting projects and just all around loverly afternoon. I got so much progress made on my tank, I had to stop & do something else because I (stupidly) didn't have my pattern and I wasn't sure what was next!

But I do have a few pics of the updates:

Pinwheel Sweater:

Yay - I figured out the loopy bindoff and am now on the sleeves. Actually, I think this is technically in hibernation, as I don't think I've worked on it for at least 2 weeks. I'm Magic Looping the sleeves and it feels awkward - I don't know why. It's like there are too many sts (60 altogether, I think) or the points are too long or the moon isn't properly aligned, I dunno. I tried putting it on a shorter cable, but then there aren't enough sts, so whatever. I will probably get back to it this fall, when it makes more sense to have a lap full of wool...

Feather & Fan Scarf:
I finally made it past the middle! Yay! I think I'm about 20 rows into the 2nd ball of yarn. Woo hoo!

I try, really I do, to work on this when I know I will have at least 20 minutes of uninterrupted knitting time - because that's how long it takes me to do a pattern repeat.

I tried making progress on this at the SNB last Sunday, but by the time I started working on it, I think my hands were just done and I kept fumbling the YO's. Still, it's on the downhill side now and I can see that it might just possibly be finished come fall...

Ballet Camisole

I love this! I've been working on it almost exclusively (sorry, F&F!) and, given my aversion to all things cotton yarn related, I am thrilled with how it's turning out! I'm a bit further along now than this picture shows - I'm about to begin the bust shaping increases and before I do that, I want to play around with another swatch so I can figure out just how to increase without getting a damn hole. The loverly Sybermom's Yarn Hores have made suggestions on where to stick it, lol, and I'll be giving that a try later today (I'm blogging from work - woo hoo!)

I added about 6 rows to the waist, as I want this thing to *really* go past my waistband & I tend to be long-waisted. I've put it on a 60" cable now (gotta love those Options needles!) and have tried it on and it.fits.perfectly! I'm beyond thrilled - this is the first fitted garment I've tried and so far, IT FITS! I'm not overly thrilled with my left-leaning decreases, but what the hell - IT FITS! (to my waist anyway - the really tricky fit part is coming up, I know.) I am putting in lifelines now, so that if the increases go wonky, I will be able to rip back without *too* much pain.

Finally, a FO - the Kitty Pi bed. I don't have a post-felt picture yet. Actually, I think I need to felt it some more as it's gotten rather floppy.

See those cute little buggers? As far as I can tell, they haven't actually slept in the bed. They have pounced on it and fought over it, but sleeping? Not so much. Sigh.

I really like the way this turned out - I used odds & ends from my stash & worked with two different colors held together; when I ran out of one color, I just added another. Unfelted, well, it looks rather fugly, but all felted up, it turned out pretty nice! Once I re-wash & block it, I'll get some pics up.

RAVELRY!!!

2007-06-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

I have been assimilated!

After about a month of not-as-patient-as-I-should-have-been waiting, I got my Ravelry invite. OMFD. It is awesome. It is more than awesome, but my vocabulary fails me.

I'm AMG there, find me, add me. If you haven't signed up, do so. And for pete's sake, just WAIT. The creators of Ravelry have received an overwhelming response and are adding people as fast as possible. Whatever you do, don't e-mail them and bitch about not getting your invite. I can't believe that people have done that. I may have whinged a tad, but only on a message board or two where I proclaimed my extreme envy of my friends who hopped on the invite list before I did.

Take the waiting time to do what I didn't do - get a Flickr account, upload & organize your project photos. Because you can drag & drop your Flickr pics onto your project pages in Ravelry. That is like, um, AWESOME. Like, totally, you know? (I told you my vocabulary wasn't firing on an cylinders...)

So, that's what I've been doing off and on for the past week.

The ultimate irony, to me anyway, is that I have been sitting at work for several weeks with lots of time in between phone calls. The week I get my Ravelry invite? We're completely swamped. Go figure.

Positive Thinking didn't do squat

2007-03-23T08:30:00.000-05:00

No matter how much I tried to tell myself to just think positive, there was no saving this project. I think there is equal blame to go around between my knitting skills (or lack thereof) and the um very nice person I'm sure who devised this diabolical Entrelac Tote pattern from Knit Picks.

There is a silver lining: I experimented with using multiple colors - 6, one for each color in the bag - with a mondo crochet hook . That was the best part of this whole thing. Approximately 30' of yarn per strand & this is what I got:

And I was quite happy with it. It turned out way cooler than everyone BUT me figured it would.

HA!

The rest of the project? Yeah. Not so much. Seriously, this is the fugliest thing I have made so far. And that includes my first ever project of an acrylic scarf for my son and the Brody scarf (again, acrylic. Pink & green, no less). I can see you don't believe me. I can hear you saying "Oh, come on! How bad can it be? Really?"

HA!

First, there were the holes. Lots of them. Everywhere I picked up stitches for the first set of triangles. There are 23 rows, with 13 picked up stitches. Of course it's going to be...well, BAD is the only word I can come up with. If I had known more about what I was doing, I would have made sure to slip the stitch on the side of the triangle that would get picked up. In fact, I'm looking at this picture and at the pattern, and I still don't know exactly how this happened. IMHO, the pattern designer could have put more info in the pattern on how to avoid this.

OK, so here is the whole damn thing in all of its un-felted, um, well, not glory, that's for damn sure. Make a mental note of those puckery places up near the top. They come into play shortly. And lookit that loverly crocheted strap.

See that ridge around the bottom? It is called the "tote base" and was supposed to be made by purling for 4 rows, then knitting the next round and picking up the "bar of the last knit stitch". Wha.....? I tried and said fuckitall, got about 1/2 through the knit round just *knitting* and realized it was supposed to be a ridge. So I just sewed it up after it all was done. Speaking of sewing, there were a bajillion ends to weave in. A BAJILLION. Seriously.

OK. Enough procrastinating. Here is the finished....thing....

And don't give me any of that guff about how it's felted and I can just "push and pull it into shape." What, you think I didn't try that? Criminy. I do love the way the colors worked out - wasn't all that sure about it when I started. The main point of this project was to stash-bust. Well, okey dokey then. I think I used 2 balls of the blue, one of the light brown and about 1/2 ball of each of the other colors. Yippee.

OH! OH! And I *just* realized: The senseless holes made with YO's in the top band for the handles? Gone. Figures.

I'm going to go pet my new Malabrigo and then try to figure out the Magic Loop thing so I can get cracking on the Pinwheel Sweater. Oh, and to clarify - no, sadly the Pinwheel will not be made from the Malabrigo. It is going to be more WOTA stashbusting. Knitting with the Malabrigo will be my prize for finishing the sweater. Or maybe for getting 3 balls into it. Or maybe for figuring out the Magic Loop. Or maybe for re-reading & watching tutorials on Magic Loop. Or maybe just for thinking about starting the sweater....

Hidden Hippo, you rock!

2007-03-16T19:24:00.000-05:00

What a great e-card - thank you! I'm still laughing. My son had me play it 3 times - and now he's trying to talk in a fast, high-pitched voice. Which, with a horribly stuffed up nose, is truly funny to watch!

You asked about the lace scarf (I'm a bad, bad blogger...). It is Knit Picks 123 Shadow Scarf And I have not done a thing on it all week. Never mind that I have finished more than 1/2 of the KP Entrelac Tote while home with the sick kiddo. The tote is something that was easy to pick up & put down. I must have a minimum of 20 uninterrupted minutes to get through 1 repeat on the scarf - a whole maybe 1/4" - and getting up for water, popsicles, tissues and "Mommy, you can change the movie for me this time" kinda put the kibosh on that.

The tote is quite the experiment, actually. When I worked in production, we had the saying of "Well, we can fix it in post" meaning "Oh, good hell, she was wearing yellow the first time we shot this damn scene!" or something equally disastrous & we'd have to figure out how to fix it in post production. I feel the same way about felting - I am trusting in the yarn deities & the power of the GE washer to make this thing wind up looking like a reasonable facsimile of the pic on the pattern.

Because you gotta have faaaaaaiiiiiith!

Sigh.

Thank you again for your kind thoughts & the e-cards! Truly lifted my spirits!

Entrelac hates me

2007-03-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

Wugh

OK, I finished all the set up triangles. This is a picture of where I ended:

Using my LEFT needle, I picked a stitch at the base of the triangle on the left - the skinny end - and then knit it with the next color. I did this 13 times.

In this picture, you can see a little piece of maroon yarn that I used to show where I ended the base triangles - I ASSumed this was the beginning of a row. 13 sts are picked up along the long side of the first base triangle I knit; the last base triangle is on the right. Does this make sense?

The next pic is the WS before I start the purls. You can see that when I get to the end & have to do the p2tog, the 2nd st that gets in the p2tog stitch is one from the END of the row. WTF? *cry*

Twinsanity - doG bless you! - I'm still trying to figure out what you said I'm doing wrong on the pickups. It still seems to me that even if I do it like you said, the sts end up on my right needle & when I turn to purl, I wind up in the same place of having the P2tog st on the *last* triangle.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

HiddenHippo, this SQUEEEE is for you!

2007-02-28T20:53:00.000-06:00

*squeeeeeee!*

I'm so excited - I signed up for the Lime & Violet Yarn Pr0n Exchange on the L&V message board and just got my partner and I am sooooooooooo excited.

*squeeeeeeee!*

Hippo, here are my survey answers - feel free to e-mail or post to me here if you have any questions!

1. What kind of fibers do you prefer?
I haven't been knitting long enough to have a real preference, to tell the truth. I do know that cotton doesn't like me back. As much as I like a nice knitted cotton washcloth as much as the next person, I know I never want to try to make one again, LOL.

2. What kind of weight do you prefer (sock, worsted, bulky)?
Again with the newbie thing - so far, I've knitted mostly with worsted. I would love to branch out into socks; the lace scarf I'm working on right now is about to kick my ass....

3. Do you spin?
Not yet...I have a drop spindle and some roving, but unfortunately haven't had the time to sit down with it and start figuring it out.

4. Do you crochet?
Only if I absolutely have to...I have 2 hooks: one for picking up stitches and one ginormous one to crochet a huge chain with multiple strands instead of knitting i-cord for hours on end for felted purse straps. I have nothing against it, but my hands are uncoordinated enough to get all confused when there is only one needle....

5. Are there any books, patterns, magazines would you like to own that you don't?
Whew. Probably better to ask which ones I do own, LOL (the two Ann Budd books and something about knitting with ribbon....). I know I want the felted clogs pattern from Fiber Trends, but I'm going to get that next trip to the LYS. A good sock book would probably come in handy, as if I listen to L&V any longer, I won't be able to resist the siren call of the sock...

6. Are you participating in any themed a-longs like the Project Spectrum?
Had I but world enough and time...(apologies to Andrew Marvell)

In other words, sadly, no.

7. Do you have a wishlist on Amazon.com or Half.com? (provide a link)
*sigh* See above.

8. Any Etsy stores that you would love to get something from?
Whew - nothing over anything else (there is one that I would prefer not to patronize - you can e-mail me if you want some more details)

9. What other crafty things are you involved in (quilting, drawing, painting)?
I do some beading and some sewing - again, time & this wacky thing called life tends to get in the way of that.

10. What is your favorite sort of scent?
I'm not much of a scent person, but what I do like is bright, "clean" scents. I'm not sure how else to describe it LOL That said, I have a bunch of Bath & Body Works lotions that I love (and use too infrequently. Note to self...)

11. Do you have a sweet tooth and what kind of sweets do you like best?
Oh, dear heavens, yes. Chocolate. The darker the better.

Pardon me, did I drool on you?

12. What kind of music do you like?
Whew - that's a tough one too. I love Willie Nelson's early stuff, I like lots of local indy singer/songwriters (well, except when they talk too much..."I wrote this song a while back, I was driving along and thinking and I thought to myself blah blah blah" Criminy. Play the damn song already, mkay?) I love old musicals too. *blush* I don't necessarily like watching them, but dang it, I love me some Sondheim & Cole Porter. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone!

13. What do you like to knit? And for whom?
Hmmm. That's a toughie. I've only been knitting for about a year. I learned a few basics in Home Ec, way back in the Dark Ages. Moses, iirc, was a teacher...

I enjoy felting, but there are only so many people you can give a purse to, and endless rounds of stockinette can get old (but it's good for knitting mindlessly, so that's OK). I've knit scarves for friends - nothing fancy - and I have my first lace scarf that I will be gifting to a marvelous woman who will be moving in April. Assuming I ever finish it...

I'm aptually at a place where I'm ready to try some new stuff. I want to make myself a sweater, but I have yet to commit to the whole "I made this and must handwash it" thing yet. Socks are probably next on my horizon. *siren call..mmmmm...socky goodness...*

14. What sort of things do you like to collect?
KP WOTA, apparently *blushes* And I seem to have a problem with novelty yarn. I'm working on that.

I haven't actually collected anything for years. I love small knicky-knacky things, but have nowhere really to put them. I like glass. I have no idea why.

15. Do you want needles? And what kind do you prefer?
I'm a circ gal, I am discovering. I tried using some straight needles for a quick scarf and all I managed to to was get all tangled over & over again. I think the endless rounds of stockinette on 10.5 circs for felted bags spoiled me for all time for straights.

As far as preference, well, it just depends. I like bamboo for slippery yarn, metal for not-slippery yarn.

Me & DPNs have, I believe, fought to a draw. I still have them and will use them if they promise not to make me curse. Too much.

Whew. LOL That's a lot!

I'm going to go knit lace now. I think I can manage another 1/4 inch before I have to go to bed...

And here...are some more...ellipses...just in case...I didn't put....enough of...them...in this...post...

Nothing like a little C&P...

2007-01-30T19:23:00.000-06:00

Because I am just too damn lazy to do this all over again, I am copying my post from the Sybermoms Stash KAL

To wit:

OK, here goes. I had to plop the child in front of disney.com to be able to drag this all out LOL
First, here is where it all lives. Well, most of it, anyway....Well, it doesn't actually live on a white sheet covering my futon, it lives in the office. But I'm not about to take pictures of that. But it does live inside these 3 plastic totes. So I was kinda telling the truth. Um, and we've recently expanded to the facbric tote....

Here is some wool...I was astounded that I only had 2 balls of Paton's. I could have sworn there was more than that LOL . The two balls of chunky blue are earmarked for a pair of felted slippers. The yellow is one of my first dyeing attempts. The rest is... well, lack of self control....

More wool. And some cotton. Some novelty yarn. And, OMD - look at that skinny skinny yarn *fainting* There's some novelty yarn in there. And that really, really fugly stuff? Yeah. Dye experiment gone horribly awry. Imagine that. I have more koolaid & plan to mount a rescue attempt. Someday. Soon. I promise.

Speaking of novelty yarn....I might have a bit of a problem in that arena...Seriously. Is there a 12-step program? And well, how else am I supposed to react when Michael's puts Fancy Fur - FANCY FUR, people! - on sale for $1/ball? Look, there's only 12 there. I think I showed remarkable restraint.

Speaking of restraint, now... I have none, none whatsover when perusing a certain catalog... And this is where WIP's live. Mostly....
Yes, that's the damn dog. Nosy bugger. And no, there is nothing in that glass beyond Coca Cola & some melting ice. And yes, that is the purple yarn that refuses to be a scarf. It will be moved to time out soon. See that little bit of lace, about 2" or so? Yeah. That's the part that CUT OFF because it was a boogered up.

I started all over again. I'm liking it. And it should be done, oh, in about time for Sally's funeral, 20 years from now LOL Seriously, I figure if I can knit an inch a day, it will take me two months. My husband just gaped at me when I told him that....

I have lost my ever lovin' mind

2007-01-14T07:31:00.000-06:00

Look at what I just got in the mail.

Yes. That is what you think it is. LACE WEIGHT yarn. Very, very skinny yarn. 3 hanks of it. THREE. And I bought skinny needles too. I KNOW!!! It's like one of the signs of the Apocalypse, isn't it?

I have this idea that I will make a feather & fan scarf for a woman who is moving away to be near her daughter and her first grandchild. So I wanted to make her something really special. Because nothing says "You are loved and will be missed" more than lace, right? Right? (dear universe, please don't tell me that it should be socks, because that would drive me completely around the bend!)

Acutally, it hasn't been all that bad. Thank heaven for circular needles, though. This is my progress after working on it yesterday morning during my son's TV time. Makes sitting through the umpteenth repeat of Little Einsteins & JoJo's Circus a LOT easier.

My biggest trouble has been the k2tog stitches - the needle (omd - it is sooooo skinny!) doesn't seem to want to get both of the damn stitches. I have also figured out that, when stopping to refresh the coffee, it is best to do so after finishing the lace pattern row, as I am not at all certain I will be able to distinguish one K row from another.

If you are reading this, you will notice I haven't updated for, oh....months. Yeah. I occasionally have this thing called "a life." Amazing. Basically, it gets in the way of crap I want to do, but well, there ya go. I have managed to turn a really sweet gift into a FO:

This is a Kristina Bag from Black Sheep Bags. One skein of Casecade 220 & one of Noro. (the bag is a tad darker than the picture - I can never get the flash thingie right) It turned out pretty nice, albeit a titch smaller than I expected. The top is a tad floppy & I haven't figured out how to fix that. I think if I make it again, I will decrease a few sts on each side. I loved, loved, loved the way the double I-cord strap worked. It was a PITA to knit, but I love the thick, flatness of it.

I have what seems like a bajillion WIP's. And I just joined the Sybermoms Stash-KAL. Which is a good thing, because I really need to use some of this stuff. I still have a gift card to JoAnn from Xmas ( I KNOW! I have been good and not just blindly bought stuff because I can! The planets must be in some bizarre alignment, what with the lace & not buying yarn....). Oh, and I reserve the right to buy the 2 skeins of Malabrigio that I have comitted to buy. And that's it. I promise. My husband about fell out laughing when I told him this.

I did place a KnitPicks order for the lace & needles and tossed in some Merino Style (because I got some from the sweet swapper who sent the Kristina pattern & yarn) and decided it was lonely and I got some WOTA to finish another BigAss Tote because I didn't have enough brown, except that I remembered which brown wrong & now I have a buttload of Snickerdoodle WOTA and am waiting for my 2nd order so I can have the Maple Syrup I need to finish this.

Yes, I know it is blue and brown. Shut up. I like it.

Also in the WIP pile is:

The Still Not Completed BigAss Tote

Some of you might remember this experiment. Essentially, I was trying to replicate something else, because someone wanted to pay me big bucks for one. At which point I flipped out & tried to make it even better. Yeah. And it was so totally worse. Anyway, I whacked off the wobbly top and it is just sitting here, staring at me, waiting. For something. I dunno. I have the i-cord strap I made when I did the bag, but I'm holding it in reserve. For this:

Looks eerily familiar, no? Sigh. Can you imagine how freaking tired I am of black & red & grey? No, it's worse. I never, ever want to see this again. But I have to finish it. So I'm calling it a WIP, with "Progess" in this case being very, very loosely defined.

Finally, there's this scarf. I saw the Caron Simply Soft Tweed and simply had to have it. And right about the time I saw it, Yarn Harlot posted this scarf. So I'm making it for my dear, sweet, puts-up-with-me-for-no-damn-good-reason-sometimes husband. And I'd be a lot further along if I could work on it at work (insert great amounts of cussing) but I can't because someone saw it out next to my keyboard while I was away from my desk and ASSumed I was knitting instead of working. Never mind that 30 minutes to an hour can go by without a call coming in....Wugh.

So, I think that's it.

OH! And I got a ballwinder for Xmas & I just bought a swift. Yay. My child loves them both & inists on "helping." Which is why I waited till he went to bed before winding the first hank of lace weight into a ball.

Whew. I suppose that's about 2 months worth of posting. Now back to knitting. Skinny yarn & skinny needles. OMD. What is the world coming to?

Crap. I hate it when I start thinking.

2006-11-06T18:23:00.000-06:00

I received this loverly Colinette Zanziba yarn in Cinnamon in a swap. there are 4 balls, approx 392 yards total. So I decided to make a scarf. Just for ME.

I wanted a wide scarf that draped nicely and that I could drape over my head to cover my ears if it were a little windy. I was spurred on to begin the thing this weekend, when I spent HOURS outside in a chilly wind at a craft fair.

So, after several false starts, I whipped out the trust 35's and cast on. Got almost to the end of the first ball when I realize I should have cast on twice as many stitches. Because then when I was done, I'd have a loverly little wrap and NO leftover yarn.

WWYD?

You can't tell from the picture, but this stuff is deliciously soft, drapes really nicely. Damnit. I need to make up my mind.

Maybe I'll just go work on something else for a while.

Paying attention is a good thing

2006-10-30T20:43:00.000-06:00

Especially when you are felting a Sophie bag. Which isn't all that big to start with.

If you are so stupid as to put your bag in the washing machine, then go get your child out of the bath, you are quite likely to be distracted with giggly fun - and then you have it morphing from this nice bag

Into this teeeeeeny tiny thing that's maybe 6" tall. WTF?

Um, just ignore that piece of my shirt that made it into the picture. And the shadow. Ignore that too. Focus on the teeeeeny tiny purse. It is oddly small compared to one of the other Sophies I've made. Of course, I have another Sophie that is fairly small too, so maybe of the 3, the bigger one is the anomaly.

So, my friend and knitting mentor and she of Purple Duckie fame, says my pre-felted bag was pretty darn small to start with. She was showing me her droolalicious Sophie she made with the new SWS yarn. Her bag was much bigger than mine. Mine was about 13" pre-felting; the strap was 46" (I mention the strap length because I YIM'd Boxy earlier today & made her measure *her* Sophie strap. Naturally, I did this while at work and managed to keep knitting i-cord to what I thought was about 36". Whatever.

Ah well. It is what it is. Which is, actually, a kind cute little bag after all.

Spent the weekend beading like mad, getting ready for the
2nd Annual Fall Festival & Chili Cookoff held at our church. I had to kick some serious beading ass as I took stock of all the knitting I had and was woefully lacking. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, stitch markers - I'd post pics of the sparklies I made, but my camera battery died while taking the above pictures. Maybe tomorrow...

When seemingly good ideas go horribly awry...

2006-09-24T07:12:00.000-05:00

So, waaaaaay back in late July, a friend saw the big tote I made & loved it. She wanted one JUST like it, but in black, grey & red. And even better, she wanted to PAY me for it. Like with real money.

So, what did I do? Proceeded to immediately freak out.

Well, OK. Not immediately.

I ordered yarn from KnitPicks, after trying to figure out how Paton's & WOTA would felt together. Hey, I was broke, had th ePaton's in red & WOTA was cheaper. That, btw, is how the small striped Sophie pictured below came about. Long story slightly shorter, I ordered yarn from KP & immediately fell in lurve with WOTA.

Then I started thinking. Bad, bad thing to do. Really. Don't think about knitting. Just DO it.

Sigh.

"What if she doesn't like it? I can't take money from her. This bag is too floppy. I can't take money from her for a floppy bag. *I KNOW!* I'll double the yarn & make it on 13's! YEAH! Oh, wait. I don't have enough WOTA. Crap. OK, I'll use every JoAnn's coupon I have, make several trips & get twice as much as I used on the 1st one. Yay.

Heavy sigh.

So, I wasn't 1/3 through the bag and had already blown through over 1/2 the amount of MC yarn that I had planned. RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP.

Now, what do I do? Check with the yarn hores. Consensus? Add a row to each stripe & felt like mad - it will felt up denser. Okay.

And guess what? That didn't work so good. I now have a tall, skinnier bag. Went through THREE cycles in the machine, including a cold rinse to kinda shock the yarn. No go.

Check this out:

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE?

Lesson learned: When someone wants to buy something, make them what they asked for, not something "better."

Dammnit.

Felting, felting, felting

2006-07-12T11:42:00.000-05:00

Keep those bags a felting, with wooooooool!

Yeeeehaaaa!

So, the Big Bad Striped Tote is done - yippeee! OK, done in the sense that I have finished knitting it, tying all the loose ends & going way too bonkers over getting the stripes not to jog and it's felted. The I-cord is almost done; I wanted to see how the bag turned out before I did the cord. So, I have about 3 more feet of cord to do. Here's the bag pre-felting:

It's drying now. Blocking it wasn't all that easy. I think I emptied every small trash can we had in the house to find a good frame for blocking. Wound up using the last two HP novels again, along with a Jasper FForde.

And now, a month later....
So, I've been using the bag. I really like, though it's floppier than I had hoped for. A friend saw it, loved it, wanted one just like it but in different colors. That saga will be in a new post...For now, here's a pic of the finished bag.

Also really late to the posting on the blog process: A tiny striped Sophie & a furry Sophie.

I'm not sure why the small one turned out so small - it's 1/3 smaller than the blue one. I used a combo of WOTA & Patons. Mebbe I just left it in theh washer too long. ¿Quién sabe?

The blue one was made in August, mostly in the car. And there were a number of times I got all off on row count. So mebbe that's why it's bigger. I dunno. I've sold them both, so I don't care anymore LOL

Wow. It's been a while...

2006-06-26T04:53:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so it's been like a month since I've updated. Time flies when you are cursing yarn....

So, the June challenge for the Bag Me KALwas to use orange and/or yellow yarn AND a novelty yarn. You could use other stuff too, but that was the challenge.

So, not finding any acceptable and affordable (for me, anyway) yellow or orange yarn, I decided to make my first dye attempt. Wugh.

I had some food coloring and vinegar in the cupboard and, having watched my craftylicious friend Nicole do marvelous things with Fisherman's, I decided to give it a try. And she gave me a 50% off coupon for the yarn, so I had little to lose. Except my sanity. Sigh.

So I tried yellow first. Put the whole 4 oz in the pot, it sucked up the dye like you wouldn't believe but the next day, after draining and rinsing, there were spots with NO dye.

Damnit. I figured it was because I was trying to put too much in the pot, so I halved the skein and overdyed with orange koolaid. Which pissed me off, because I wanted the whole 465 yards of it for the bag I was creating. So, the overdye was mildly successful - the yarn was still kind of mottled, but it wasn't bad. So, I overdyed the yellow too. Same thing - the color took better, but the sections that hadn't taken before were lighter than the rest. The nice thing about koolaid dyeing is that it smells WAAAAAAY better than food color & vinegar. And jeebis - it took forevah to dry.

So, resigned to having mottled yellow and orange yarn, I swatched the orange and hoped for the best. Here's the orange, pre-felting:

Then the real trouble began: My test swatches of the yellow & orange didn't felt! Well, the orange did a little, but nowhere near what I wanted. The yellow when combined with the various nogvelty yarns did not felt at all. Oh - and the sparkly fun-furry yarn I bought cheap at Hobby Lobby (Party Girl, i believe it's called) is truly, truly fugly after washing. So, I dithered for days and days, trying various things, none of which I liked. And I cursed. A lot. And I haunted the craft stores, looking for yellow or orange fun fur. Crap. Michael's had it on sale for $2.77, but no yellow, no orange. I got some fugly fun fur striping stuff in desperation, but it just did not work for the project. Much cursing ensued.

I finally said fuckit and knitted a tube with a flap, with the vague notion of making some kind of flower with the Bernat Boa and something....and lo and behold, the damn thing felted. *faint* I hate the flower, but by the time I got that far, I didn't give a damn anymore, LOL. The purse was gifted to one of my son's friends at her birthday party this past Saturday. (Well, ok, it's his wife. They married at the homeschool co-op last fall. She also married another little boy from church, and I think my son married him too. As long as they are happy....) She was delighted with the purse, even before she found the $5 I tucked inside.

No bowling for you!

2006-05-24T10:38:00.000-05:00

Sadly, time out did not help the bowling bag purse.

DH put it best when he said, while I was cursing the project yet again, "Honey, I thought you took up knitting because it was relaxing..."

Yeah.

That and I left it up to the yarn doGs to determine the fate of the bag: I managed to miss the part of the pattern at the very beginning that called for TWO pair of 10.5 circs, so I got to the part after the hellacious picking up & increases on the sides & bottom and knitting 15 rows and THEN figured out I NEEDED ANOTHER PAIR OF CIRCS. Wugh. I tried putting it on DPNs but after dropping innumerable stitches (and the above helpful comment from the man...), I decided that my meager budget could afford a trip to Hell Mart - if they had 10.5 circs, I would bull my way through. If not, well, that was that.

End result? Yarn doGs were quite cruel that day: no circs AND there was a ton of novelty yarn on sale for $1, $2 & $4 per ball BUT there was so much other yarn in the bins, you couldn't tell which was what and naturally, no one in sight to answer questions.

Sigh.

So I booga'd a bag. Yay me.

I managed to leave it in washer a titch too long, so it's a bit shorter than I had hoped, but it's OK. Blocking nicely, using the last two volumes of Harry Potter....

Oh, and did I mention 6' of I-cord is a huge PITA?

Um, yeah. I can't think of a catchy title for this post

2006-05-16T06:11:00.000-05:00

Because I am suffering more newbie knitter trauma.

Sigh.

Went to big yarn yard sale, got lots of stuff. You'd think that there would have been enough of something to MAKE something. You'd think so, but you know you would be wrong....

So, with the beautiful 4 balls of soft purple bulky yarn, I decided to make the bulky baby asymmetrical cardigan (scroll down for pattern). BUT, of course, just plain purple in garter stitch wasn't good enough for me. Nonono. SO I decided to edge it with nice soft fuzzy $2 a ball on clearance from Michael's yarn. Which resulted in a beautiful edge and what felt like I was knitting an octopus, I had so many live threads going....

And then, we came to the "Cast on 5 sts on right edge." Whoopsie. No can do, what with that purdy fuzzy edge. So I tried my hand at increases. Not so nice. But wtf - I"m not frogging all of this.

Now the thing is in time out, because on the opposite side, I have to CO like 15 sts and I haven't figure out how to do that without it being fugly.

In the mean time....

This was more of the $1/ball sale at Michael's. Knit up quick in garter on 17's while watching Law & Order. It will be someone's Xmas present....

And this little almost-FO...
Moda Dea Tutu is evile - even if it was in the same $1/ball sale....And I have some sea green too. I don't want to make another little envelope purse that I have to line and make a handle for and find a button for that will probably just never get finished because...what a PITA. I actually looked for buttons the last trip to Michael's & JoAnn's. Totally spaced actually BUYING some, because I was so fixated on yarn...

Which brings me to my current dilemma. The
Felted Bowling Purse. I love this purse. Except that I have frogged the 3rd triangle 3 times and I am about to frog the 2nd triangle. Because for some freaking reason, I can't get the 3rd triangle to begin with the color change showing up on the WS. The only way to do it is to purl the 1st 3 sts or....to tear my hair out. Aptually, it appears that I screwed up somewhere in the 2nd triangle. Ithink. At some point, for some reason, I hd to frog some rows & they may have gone back on the needle wrong. Or something. I have no fucking idea.

The really sad part is that I inexplicably woke at 3:30 this morning, and that damn triangle was haunting me & I couldn't go back to sleep.

My First Hat

2006-05-03T21:37:00.000-05:00

Awwwwwwwwwwww.......

I absolutely fucking HATED purling on dpns.

And I HATED purling on circs to get the garter stitch.

AND...maybe I read the PATTERN wrong, but the PICTURE looks like it's all in garter stitch and the PATTERN says, in the decrease rows to fooking KNIT all even rows. So, I'm either blind or stupid (quite possibly both - doG knows I'm crazy as a loon.....) or the PATTERN LIED TO ME.

Surprisingly enough to me, (after the battle of the DPNs) the finishing of the hat by pulling the tail thru the last 6 stitches was so easy, I figure I must have done something wrong LOL.

Here is my favorite model with the hat.

What you can not see/hear is my thinks-he's-so-funny husband singing the Mary Tyler Moore theme song. Sigh.

The Miracle of the Pink Yarn

2006-05-03T21:11:00.000-05:00

Yup. That's all that's left of the miraculous Pink Cascade. Bless its heart. It lasted as long as it needed to.

Along about row 50, I was starting to get worried. I continued to berate myself for not striping the bottom or something. I was worried I would run out of pink and have to do the handles all in yellow and I knew that grubby hands on yellow would be, well, grubby looking.

Speaking of handles...I'm kicking myself for second guessing myself on how many to bind off for the tote handles. I had planned on 20 and I should have stuck with my plan, because, well, the handles turned out too big. And, just in case you were wondering: NO, you can NEVER have to many markers.

Oh, and now would be a good time to thank all the Yarn Hores at Syberemoms for talking me down from my OMFD! HOW THE HELL DO YOU PICK UP STITCHES ON THESE EVILE CIRCS?!?!?!? little freak out. They didn't even really laugh at me. Much.

So, here it is before felting - I really, really, really like the way the stripes worked out.

And finished:

A qualified success. As in "I had no fucking clue what I was doing when I started and I pretty much winged it the whole way and look! I have a relatively useable (as in, you can put shit it in. mostly.), not-actually-fugly finished item!"

I don't like how wide it wound up and we've already talked about the not so great Handle Decision. But I think the stripes totally rock and I want to use that pattern again.

And so it begins....

2006-04-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the generosity of 2 really cool
Sybermoms, AKA Girl Interrupted & Box of Rain, I know have the requsite supplies to knit a real bag.

So, I naturally proceeded to spend about a day and 1/2 searching for he perfect felted bag. Because, well, I have to have a pattern. I'm pretty sure I was about 1 instant message away from being banned by the Box. Seriously, I must have spent at least a day at Knitty Chick's Free Felted Patterns and at Knitting Central's free patterns for bags, totes & purses.

Naturally, nothing was just right, Goldilocks. So, I made it up. LOL

Cast on 60, knit for 40 rows, then pick up 20, 60, 20. Yeah. We're at the "picking up" stage.

Oh, did I mention the stripes? There's at least half a day, right there! LOL Because getting the perfect stripe pattern is important. Especially if that delays the oh-so-scary beginning a real project. I really liked the stripes on Knit Picks Farmer's Market Tote, but I didn't want that big of a bag and I only had two balls of yarn (btw, a ball winder has made it to the TOP of my Xmas list. Santa? You are paying attention, right?).

And the handle - did I mention that? Because I was thinking about just doing a Booga Bag or a Sopie, but didn't like the handle. I wanted a buttonhole handle, like the Lopi Tote, but I didn't want that bag itself. Yeah. You can see where this is going.

So, I just made it up. With many, many IM's to the most loverly Box of Rain. And hours spent on Excel making stripe patterns.

STFU. It worked. Or rather, it appears that it worked. The proof will be in the, um, felting.

We'll see. Because, I'm blogging instead of picking up stitches. Because it's intimidating. I can only watch the Knitting Help girl so much. It beats the hell outta Barney, though...

Books, Books, and More Books - and new yarn!

2006-04-22T07:13:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhhh....I love libraries!

I have about 20 knitting books that I picked up the other day (um, not realizing I had put that many on reserve). Stitch encyclopedias (I could make dishcloths from now till eternity...), knitting for beginners, baby patterns...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

A loverly Sybermom sent me some beautiful yarn. Someday, I will stop fondling it and actually make something with it, probably the felted backpack she sent the pattern for. Wow. Nice yarn is so totally drool-worthy.

AMG 1, Fun Fur 0

2006-04-19T08:31:00.000-05:00

HA!

Take THAT, you fuzzy string you!

This is a purse for my niece. I even managed to unsew it after I sewed the wrong sides together - and I used a strand of Fun Fur to sew it.

HA!

I didn't have enough yarn (or patience, for that matter) left to make the strap, so beads it is.

HA!

This was supposed to be a purse with MicroSpun lining made from a pattern. Yeah. Not so much. Whatever. 30 sts on #8 needles. Knit till yarn is gone. I haven't measured how big it is. Took most of a day. But it is DONE now.

HA!

Now THAT'S a fugly scarf...

2006-04-19T07:48:00.000-05:00

But it has meaning...

See, almost 5 years ago, I produced & directed a play written by a local playwright (because my theater co. produced new works by local playwrights). She also acted in the play, as did my husband. The piece was fictional, but with many elements based on real life. The character played by DH has a heart condition, so he has taken up crochet - in some of the doGawfulest colors, too LOL

He is also a packrat, and after he passes, the wife (played by the playwright) starts to clean out his shed. She comes across a yarn stash, which includes several balls of pink yarn left over from the pink blanket he made their daighter. She also finds a ton of olive green yarn, prompting the line "What? You were going to knit a Jeep?"

As producer, I bought the cheapest yarn I could as props. And guess what's been in my garage for 5 years? LOL

So, because I love the playwright & needed knitting practice, I made her the Brody scarf! (Brody is the husband in the play).

It was good practice for me - I did it in 1 x 1 ribbing - and she loved it! And here it is, as modeled by DH, who played Brody in the show and in the screenplay that was subsequently made as a result of an indepedant filmmaker falling in love with the show when he saw it :D

Oh, look at that beautiful blanket!

2006-04-13T08:31:00.000-05:00

I can not begin to tell you how...satisfying it was to be DONE with this damn blanket.

Because that meant that I could return the evile #15 circs and the 3 unused balls of cheap-ass yarn (I plead newbie ignorance, ok?) and get more needles for other projects.

Blechy blechy blechy basketweave baby blankie

2006-04-10T12:35:00.000-05:00

So, I'm just making this one up as I go along....

I cast on 100, k 5 rows, then began
k5 (p10, k10) k5
K5 (k10, p10) k5
and at some point, when the thing looks like the weave is square, I'll do a double k5 (k10, p10) k5 row to start the next section of "weave."

I hate circs at the moment. They just seem to want to twist the way I do NOT want them to go. Grrrr.

Here I started this, thinking what with the klassy yarn markers every 10 stitches, I'd easily be able to put it down & pick it up again. Well, yeah. Unless I'm not paying attention and start knitting back the way I came. Sigh. So, 45 minutes later, I managed to finish the row. After I discovered that after frogging the partial row and getting going in the correct direction again, I was k'ing when I should have been p'ing. I got good at putting this damn thing back on the damn needles. Backwards.

So, what is driving me to distraction and causing me to shout BLECH at regualr intervals is the looseness of the stitch on the transition between k & p. Blech.

So, um, what have I been doing since my last post? Well, I finished the red fun furn scarf. Will, finished in the sense that I stopped knitting it and did the bind off. Now all I have to do is figure out how to weave in all the ends. It's peeking at me right now. It wants to be woven in. I want it to STFU and just weave it's own self. Hey, it could happen.

In other news, I'm currently "in between jobs" as they say. So, I've been busy HS'ing my 4 y/o, working in the garden (things are sprouting! YAY!) and we're all getting used to our newest family member, Max. Erm, Max is the canine ;-)

It's Sunday....

2006-02-12T08:34:00.000-06:00

And I was going to get so much done this weekend. Instead, we've all been sneezing & sniffling and lazing about. I did get my first baby washcloth finished for the Knitting Olympics. You can see my progress on that, along with my teammates, on our team blog.

I did take a break from knitting (and cursing the knitting) to make a set of stitch markers. A fellow Sybermom requested a set to give as a gift. I love these little red hearts.

We're off to church this morning. Wasn't going to go, but today is the day of the Secret Pal reveal and we can't not go - we're a secret pal to another kid and our kid has a Secret Pal who has been really sweet to him, so off we go. I am going to slide on the pot luck, though. Just call me a lazy freeloader...

What on earth was I thinking?

2006-02-10T21:32:00.000-06:00

Oh, wait. Thinking. Right. That should have come into play somewhere along the way. I plead the Nyquil defense.

So, I'm playing in The 2006 Knitting Olympics because...um, yeah. Still working on that. My fellow teammates will be like the Austrians in the Alpine event & I'm that guy from Bermuda, just doing my best...

Which is not, apparently, purling. I have yet to figure out why those stitches are so loose. I'm sure it's some time-honored newbie knitter thing, but it's pissing me off. I wonder if there is an Olympic knitting record for longest time evah spent knitting a pink cotton dishcloth?

There are hearts appearing. It only took 2 hours for 11-ish rows (because I haven't learned yet how I'm supposed to count those rows I pull out and painstakingly put back on the needle...)

You know you're in trouble when

2006-02-07T22:06:00.000-06:00

You take your 4 y/o to the craft store.

Make that stores.

I now have a pair of circs that are most definitely not a size 10, despite all the letters all over the packaging that attest that they are. And, had I been in my right mind at the time, I might have noticed that they were about 6 sizes too big.

Sigh.

Oh, look. Another blog.

2006-02-07T15:26:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so I'm jumping on the blog bandwagon thingie.

What is the world coming to? The apocalypse must be near, seeing as how I have taken up knitting.

I know, I know. You can pick yourself up off the floor now...And you can admire my first finished piece. Oh, yeah. You can admire the kid, too....